(Un)happy Endings

I finished Pillars of Eternity and had an enjoyable time. My Steam time played shows ridiculous hours because I left the game on days at a time as I popped in and out. The game lent itself well to short play sessions (well, planned that way at least) that would stretch into “I can do one more room” (or area. or quest. or bounty). I like games that compel me to push on when I should stop playing. There is a LOT of lore in the world and they should be commended for that effort. I loved picking up books on bookshelves to read about some obscure captain of the guard, or a historical family in the area. Both of which I would never encounter or interact with, but which helped make the world feel more like a world.

I finished the game quite by accident. It probably should have been more obvious to me but I did want to finish all the companion quests and side ones I had before finishing the game. Once I realized I was most likely in the final stretches of the story  I also assumed that even if I finished the main quest line that I would be afforded the opportunity to complete my outstanding missions.

I was not.

This lead me to a small dissatisfaction with the way the game ended, in all of it’s finality. One of my favourite companion characters was a Dwarven Ranger named Sagani. Her quest is to find the reincarnated elder of her village and has been searching for him for five years. After I completed the game by interacting with the environment, the game went straight into “end” mode and gave a nice narration of what happened to all of the companions afterwards. Sagani, my best friend in the game didn’t get her mission completed and her fate was sealed.

[spoiler here – game is old, so not too worried, but if you plan on playing it and hate spoilers don’t read!]

[final warning!]

She searched for another 20 years before finding the reincarnation and when she returned home her husband was dead, some of her kids, and the village as she left it was not recognizable. I felt like a jerk for not completing her quest. How would it have changed her life? Truth be told, I WOULD have, so now my jerkiness made me feel like the game ripped me off from giving me the opportunity to finish all that I wanted before ‘ending’ the game. Now I had to go to a previous save point, ensure I finished all of the side quests I wanted to before redoing the content I already did (and don’t want to do) to see how that changes the fortunes of Sagani. Probably another three or four hours of playtime.

I am not sure how related this is but I am not really interested in the two expansions that are now out. Is it because no matter what happens there, their stories and fates are already sealed? The expansion takes place before the ending, so do I have to reload yet another pre-ending saved game to experience that content? I think that since the game is “done” in my experience it is discouraging me from buying the expansions. I am still trying to sort through that in my head.

Good on Obsidian for making me care so much about a character to actually go through the steps of replaying parts to ensure they end up okay. Bad on them for not having a way to end the game on my own terms, in my Keep, when I felt like I had accomplished all I needed to in their wonderfully crafted world.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

%d bloggers like this: